silence

I’ve been thinking about words lately, mostly because it seems I have fewer these days. Back when I first began blogging eight years ago, I posted every day, seven days a week. Over time that frequency diminished to five days a week, then three days, until, most recently, I settled on once a week. Some weeks, even one post feels like a stretch.

I’m not sure why I seem to have less and less to say. Maybe after eight years of blogging, 1,547 posts, 86 columns for the Journal Star, three books, and dozens of articles, I’ve simply burned out.

Or maybe I’ve said all I have to say.

Or maybe, in a world that feels noisier every day, I’ve become more discerning about what and how much I add to the cacophony of voices and opinions.

I’ve been reading Henri Nouwen’s The Way of the Heart. It’s a small book, but it’s packed with powerful insights. Nouwen has (ironically) a lot to say about the value of silence:

“Let us at least raise the question of whether our lavish ways of sharing are not more compulsive than virtuous; that instead of creating community they tend to flatten out our life together.”

Nouwen wrote those words long before the advent of blogging and social media, but I can’t help but read them through the lens of the present day and from my own experience as an author.

When I posted that quote on Instagram (again, the irony), a reader commented that she didn’t understand the last bit, the part about how shared words can flatten out our life together.

I’m not sure I totally understand what he means either, but I know from my own experience, I often come away from social media feeling flattened — numb, distant, distracted, fragmented — whether I’ve shared myself or read what others have shared. To me, there is a false intimacy and a one-dimensionality there, even as we strive for authenticity, depth, and connection.

Nouwen also writes about the importance of faithfully caring for the inward fire.

“It is not so strange that many ministers have become burnt-out cases, people who say many words and share many experiences, but in whom the fire of God’s Spirit has died and from whom not much more comes forth than their own boring, petty ideas and feelings.

Our first and foremost task is faithfully to care for the inward fire so that when it is really needed it can offer the warmth and light to lost travelers.”

On one hand, caring for the inward fire as my first and foremost task feels selfish to me. As a “Christian writer,” I feel compelled to use my gifts to share the gospel — to offer, to the best of my ability, a little light by which to see along the journey. Caring for my own inward fire — especially caring for it first and foremost — doesn’t feel self-sacrificial enough.

Yet here’s the clincher: that inward light is what feeds my words. If I allow my own inner light to be diminished or extinguished, my words will become a mere clanging cymbal — noisy and persistent, but empty of truth.

The inward light also feeds me. Without it, I am an empty shell without a pearl; a body without a spirit.

“As ministers, our greatest temptation is toward too many words,” Nouwen writes. “They weaken our faith and make us lukewarm. But silence is a sacred discipline, a guard of the Holy Spirit.”

I think I’ve mostly reversed the order here by trying to care for the inward fire of others before my own. And isn’t that, in some ways, irreverent or perhaps even blasphemous – to assume the soul-care of others is my job, rather than God’s?

I guess this is a long-winded way (again, the irony!) of saying I’ll be quiet in this space for a while – perhaps for the rest of the summer, perhaps longer. I’ve resisted this decision. For a variety of reasons I’ve tried to ignore the nudge. To stop blogging seems both unwise professionally and a little bit unfair to my readers, some of whom have been faithfully walking alongside me here the whole long way (bless you!).

Yet I also know it would be more unwise to keep pushing. I don’t want to become the person who says many words and shares many experiences, but in whom the fire of God’s spirit has died.

Thanks for your understanding and patience, friends. You are very dear to me, and I am more grateful to you than you will probably ever know.

Lately I’ve been busy pruning. First I pruned my closet, keeping only the clothes I love and that fit (I finally parted ways with my favorite red pants because clearly “just three more pounds” is never going to happen).

Next I pruned my backyard, yanking errant coneflower, goldenrod and phlox from the flower beds and clipping dead branches and twigs from the river birch and magnolia trees. Eight leaf bags later, I now see open space and bits of sky and earth instead of a tangle of unruly branches and unkempt perennials.

I’ve altered my work space, too. I switched from the small antique letter desk I inherited from my grandmother to a larger table, removed all but three of my favorite knickknacks and wiped the surface clean.

A couple of weeks ago my family and I returned from a ten-day trip to the Pacific Northwest. We spent our last day of vacation at the Japanese Garden in Portland, Oregon, where our guide explained the gardening technique referred to as “pruning open.” She pointed to the various maples, pine and dogwood surrounding us, all of which had been dramatically pruned to reveal an aesthetic presentation of limbs, branches and foliage.

“Pruning open” allows the visitor to see up, out and beyond to the sky and landscape, our guide informed us. It creates a sense of openness and lets in the light.

As we meandered along one of the garden’s wooded paths, my son Noah noticed that everyone in our tour group whispered as they walked. In fact, every guest we passed during the more than two hours we spent in the garden that morning spoke in hushed tones. Something about being in such an uncluttered, serene landscape naturally quieted us.

I’ve thought a lot about the concept of “pruning open” in the days following our visit to the Japanese garden, not only as it relates to my physical surroundings – my yard, closet and workspace – but also how the practice might impact both my mental health and my spiritual life.

Like most twenty-first-century Americans, my days are cluttered with demands, responsibilities, deadlines, errands and appointments. My personal calendar is full of social obligations, and even my supposed down time is comprised of a cacophonous mix of television, the Internet and social media. My smart phone is always in my purse or my back pocket, and the moment it dings, I pull it out and swipe its face.

What would it look like, I wondered, to “prune open” not only my physical surroundings, but my personal time and my inner life, too?

In light of that question, I’m trying to carve out a bit of time each day, even as little as a half hour, in which I do nothing but sit quietly in the chaise lounge in the corner of my back patio. I leave my phone indoors, and I don’t read or write, text or talk. I simply sit with no goal, agenda or purpose. I do nothing, and in the process, unclutter my mind and spirit, at least for a short while.

We can’t “prune open” our entire lives; after all, we have jobs, families to tend to, demands to meet and duties to perform. But we can “prune open” a small space and a sliver of time each day in which to quiet ourselves – a clearing in the jumble and tangle of our busy lives that allows us to see up, out and beyond ourselves.

Primary Sidebar

Living out faith in the everyday is no joke. If you’re anything like me, some days you feel full of confidence and hope, eager to proclaim God’s goodness and love to the world. Other days…not so much.

Let me say straight up: I wrestle with my faith. Most days I feel a little bit like Jacob, wrangling his blessing out of God. And most days I’m okay with that. I believe God made me a questioner and a wrestler for a reason, and I believe one of those reasons is so that I can connect more authentically with others.